Wood Brother Racing and Josh Berry have announced that Berry will not be returning to the 21 car for the 2027 season. Wood Brothers chose not to pick up the option on Berry for another year.
They added that a new driver would be announced in the “near future”.
With this announcement, it would appear that the NASCAR Silly Season is in full bloom. Currently that makes two teams in search of a driver for the 2027 season and two drivers looking for rides.
Berry spoke on the decision saying, “just to go ahead and put it out there, I will not be back in the 21 car next year. They’ve been amazing to work with, amazing people, and it’s been such a great opportunity.”
He added, “what I didn’t want to do was sit here and feed a line to you guys and then have it get announced [later], so I feel like that makes me pretty ignorant, so I wasn’t going to do that.”
Currently, Berry sits 30th in the point standings in his second year with the iconic racing team.
Berry noted, “you hear the rumor mills start going, so I’m not going to say that I was completely caught off guard. I didn’t exactly feel great about it. I probably would have said myself I was probably 50-50 in what was going on.”
He continued, “obviously, hit the ground running here, working hard to try and find out what’s out there, and certainly open and optimistic about any opportunities that come my way, but first and foremost, we’re going to do our best to finish this season strong and leave in a good place.”
The Wood Brothers issued a statement saying, “we thank Josh Berry for all he’s done for Wood Brothers Racing and our partners over the last two seasons. Josh has been a great teammate and we look forward to a strong finish to this season. We wish Josh all the best moving forward. We will announce who will be driving the number 21 Ford Mustang Dark Horse in 2027 soon and we are excited for what lies ahead for Wood Brothers Racing.”